Nearly two years after Riverside voters called for a new watchdog at City Hall, the City Council unanimously appointed Lori K.M. Cox on Tuesday as the city’s first inspector general.
Cox, who has spent the past six years as chief internal auditor for Dallas College in Texas, will examine how Riverside spends public money and how its departments operate. Her responsibilities include investigating fraud, waste, abuse and policy violations, managing whistleblower programs and leading financial, performance, contract and compliance audits.
Under Measure L, the inspector general can conduct investigations, audits, inspections and performance evaluations of city government and must report findings and recommendations to the City Council at a public meeting at least once a year. The position reports directly to the mayor and City Council while maintaining operational independence.
“Riversiders asked for an Inspector General, and now we have one,” Mayor Patricia Lock Dawson said in a city news release. “Our responsibility is not only to serve the city well, but to do so in a way that earns our community’s trust. The Inspector General will help us uphold that trust.”
Cox starts Oct. 19 under a three-year contract at an annual salary of $219,000, and the office will begin with a $712,000 budget, according to the city.
Her appointment follows a lengthy effort to turn the voter-approved position into a working office. Riverside voters approved Measure L in November 2024, amending the city charter to create the role. The council formally established the office on a 6-1 vote in November 2025, after months of debate over its structure and independence.
Recruitment ran from March 3 through April 5, and the council began interviewing candidates in closed session in July. Mayor Pro Tem Clarissa Cervantes and Councilmember Steven Robillard served on the working group that led recruitment and hiring, according to the release.
Cervantes said Cox’s experience would help the office meet residents’ expectations.
“With her deep experience in government auditing, Ms. Cox will help ensure our city government and processes remain ethical, transparent, and responsive to community expectations,” she said in the release.
“This comes after a very, very long and exhaustive search for the right candidate for this position,” Robillard said at Tuesday’s meeting. “We had a lot of great candidates who applied for this position, [and] it was actually a very competitive field.”
Robillard said choosing someone for the job was only part of the work.
“It wasn’t just about hiring someone to be the [inspector general], it was about creating an entire office and the infrastructure in the office,” he said. “They literally created the office from scratch, [and] we had to figure out the budget [and] all those things.”
As officials worked to build the office, they also faced questions about how independently it could operate. Critics have questioned whether a watchdog chosen by and reporting to elected officials can independently investigate those same officials.
In public comment ahead of the council’s July interviews, resident Keith Nelson challenged that arrangement, describing it as “another layer of bureaucracy dressed up to look like accountability.” He questioned whether the office could independently oversee the officials it answers to.
Councilmember Philip Falcone, who wrote the ballot argument against Measure L and cast the lone vote against establishing the office, previously called the role “expensive, untested, and unnecessary.” However, Falcone joined the rest of the council in voting to approve Cox’s appointment on Tuesday.
Before joining Dallas College, Cox served as city auditor for Tempe, Arizona, and director of internal audit for Pima Community College. She also held management services and compliance officer and tribal administrator roles with the Pascua Yaqui Tribe of Arizona.
She holds a master’s degree in business administration from Grand Canyon University and a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Arizona. Her professional certifications cover internal auditing, government auditing, risk management assurance, and ethics and compliance.
